Subscribe!
Brown University Shooting Resolves – Hyper Vigilance Now Our New Normal Way of Life
It will never be over for the victims and Brown community in the Brown University Shooting. What has ended is any thought of a time of innocence and freedom for college-going young people – and perhaps for all of us. Today, if we have not embraced a necessary lifestyle, we sense a new normal – a new vigilance – a hyper awareness – our heads on a swivel – in the most innocuous places – from shopping malls to movie theaters – to lecture halls.
The Brown University shooting marks a turning point for Rhode Island, ushering in a new era of vigilance across campuses and communities. Brown University shooting marks a turning point for Rhode Island, ushering in a new era of vigilance across campuses and communities.
Governor McKee said, “we are forever changed” – and so we are.
The Brown University Shooting saga ends with more questions than the mind can absorb. It is best relayed by watching and listening to the two press conferences which were held – late into the night – after an all-out manhunt played out rapidly from Providence to Brookline to New Hampshire. Ending in an empty storage container, with a dead man. For Providence residents and workers, a sigh of relief and a return to an altered sense of normalcy, with Christmas 6 days away, tonight the 6th day of Hanukkah.
RI Attorney General Neronha said the homeless man who stepped forward to say he was the man in the photo of a person investigators wanted to talk to “blew the case wide open”. He told his story of having confronted a man – the killer – who looked like he didn’t belong on campus and at the engineering building where the shooting occurred. He confronted him in a bathroom and the assailant left after having tense words. There are reports that the “homeless man” – “John” – was living in the basement of the building, or another Brown U building, and that he may have worked on campus as well. He became so worried about this person that he followed him – “playing cat and mouse” – and got his license plate number. This was before the shooting. He approached two law enforcement officers after finding out he was being looked for and told them what he knew.
The plate number led to photos of the assailant renting a car in Massachusetts. That led to suppositions that he was involved in the murder of the MIT professor. The investigators let the media know that they knew who the person was and now had a warrant for his arrest. Leah Foley, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, said she believed Mr. Valente knew Dr. Loureiro but did not elaborate on the nature of their relationship.
In quick fashion the car was found in Salem, New Hampshire and found at a long term storage facility. The facility had records that he had rented a unit. The car was found, the unit found, but it was locked from the outside – but in the unit right next to it the shooter was found, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot would.
Dead Men Tell No Tales – and there will be more questions than answers.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, was a Portuguese national who came into this country on a visa in 2000, attended Brown in a graduate physics program, with classes in the engineering building where the shooting happened, leaving the program on a leave of absence and then finally withdrawing – more than 10 years ago. He lived in Miami, Florida. Valente had gone to college in Lisbon, Portugal with the MIT professor, who is the same age. It will take days to find out what can be known about motive. A settling of old scores in his own mind? Jealousy of a life he was on the path to live, but failed? How much we will eventually learn is days away.
According to the Miami Times, “Authorities said Neves Valente last lived in a home at 1310 NE 200th St. in Miami-Dade. Miami-Dade property records show the current owner of the home is not Neves Valente. The 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home, valued at $423,439, sits in a residential neighborhood near Aventura in the northernmost part of Miami-Dade. He rented a Nissan Sentra on Dec. 1 at Alamo Rental Cars in Boston using a Florida driver’s license”. The paper says Valente left the US, returning in 2017 at JFK airport. “He was issued a diversity immigrant visa a few months prior, and attained permanent legal residency.”
The End of Innocence for College Campuses – Digging into Endowments to Protect and Defend
Over and over again we’ve heard about Brown University’s $8 or $9 million endowment. We know that much of the campus – regardless of 1,200 cameras – is not being surveiled – CCTV units are required now – as they should be on every campus in America – these produce live video that can be watched by campus security – and that are connected to local police stations. It will be a loss of privacy – but it is necessary to the agreement of most.
DV1 Diversity Lottery Immigrant Visa Program immediately pauses – Kristi Noem, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – “The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country. In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people.
This is a developing story
So sad, thinking of you all in RI. Amazing that in this day and age you had a University in a US City without CCTV covering the whole campus. That common sense could have saved lives.